Click here to read a pdf excerpt.Click here to read the publisher’s blog post on this book.

André Naffis-Sahely is a poet and translates from the French and the Italian. His translation of Zola’s L’argent is forthcoming from Penguin Classics.

Julian Stannard is a Reader in English and Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. His books include studies of Basil Bunting (forthcoming) and of Fleur Adcock, Donald Davie and Charles Tomlinson. His most recent collection of poetry is The Parrots of Villa Gruber Discover Lapis Lazuli (Salmon, 2011).

‘The editors of this varied, informative, sometimes eccentric symposium aimed to avoid “the tedium of pedestrian scholarship”, and they have succeeded, preferring what Hofmann, in his own collection of essays, called the “swift, provisional, personal response” ... The first full-length study of Michael Hofmann, The Palm Beach Effect is already indispensable.’ – John Constable, The Use of English

‘Admirers of Michael Hofmann will enjoy this collection of essays, anecdotes and poems from the elegantly various CB editions – not quite a Festschrift, writes Julian Stannard, because the poet isn’t done yet …. The Palm Beach Effect features some impressive verse contributions and also student accounts – “When you see Michael, no matter where or why, you get the real Michael” … James Buchan and Shaun Whiteside discuss his translations, and we end with “Hofmann on Hofmann”, Lawrence Joseph’s selection from his critical prose.’

– Vidyan Ravinthiran, PN Review

‘He is contemporary poetry’s most flitting and elusive ghost, the white whale of our lost alternative to all that is provincial and small in a tawdry world, our impossible strong enchanter’ – David Wheatley

‘MH was a league ahead of the rest of us; while we were writing solemn young poems, he was writing a poem entitled “Solemn Young Poem”’ – Stephen Romer

‘Sitting in a high-backed conference-room chair, he has the look of someone who’s just hopped off a bike’ – Curtis D’Costa

Michael Hofmann has been an iconic figure for his generation. His poetry continues to be a defining influence on younger writers; his translations (of Joseph Roth, Wolfgang Koeppen, Herta Müller and many others) have enlarged our world.

The Palm Beach Effect reaffirms Hofmann’s central place in contemporary literature. The contributions include essays on particular aspects of Hofmann’s work, poems, memories of 1980s literary London and reports from some of Hofmann’s former students at the University of Florida. Notable throughout, as well as respect for the work, is an affection for the man himself. The book includes a bibliography and a frontispiece portrait of Michael Hofmann by Arturo Di Stefano.